


In All This Wide World

by Sineala



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Action/Adventure, Avengers Vol. 3 (1998), Dinosaurs, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 06:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12150513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: Tony's known Steve for ten years. With the formation of a brand-new team, with their bright future ahead of them, Tony's decided that it's finally time to ask Steve out. Now. Today. But his plans are interrupted when they have to go to the Savage Land -- where, of course, they are marooned together. Just the two of them, miles of jungle, profusely-bleeding injuries, and packs of vicious carnivorous dinosaurs. Not only are they not going to get to go on that date, they may not make it home alive at all.





	In All This Wide World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phoenixmetaphor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixmetaphor/gifts).



> This story was written for the [Superhusbands Aluminum Anniversary Anthology](https://stevetonystudios.tumblr.com/post/165573788687/sa3-release) (celebrating ten years since the release of The Confession), in collaboration with phoenixmetaphor who drew an amazing illustration (and who, y'know, also thought dinosaurs would be a great subject). RAWR.
> 
> I was very glad to be able to participate in the SA3 anthology, and very fortunate to be able to work with Phoenix again. And I hope you all enjoy some classic 616 v3 Savage Land h/c with RAPTOR PUNCHING.
> 
> Thanks to Kiyaar for beta!
> 
> This story has been translated [into Chinese](http://yizhiajiu401.lofter.com/post/1f1fe61b_124b97cc) by madeline_stony.

The most frustrating thing about Tony's present situation wasn't the fact that mysterious energies were playing havoc with every single sensor system that he had, both in his suit and in the Quinjet. It wasn't the fact that the Quinjet emergency indicators had just informed him that the third of five engines had now failed. And it wasn't even the fact that they were now falling, careening toward the outskirts of the Savage Land at high speed, in what was sure to be a spectacular and deadly crash. 

No, the most frustrating thing about Tony's situation was that he'd had a plan for today, goddammit, and this most definitely had not been included in it.

Tony had actually been optimistic. For once in his entire pathetic life, he'd seen the future and welcomed it with open arms. They'd all finally found their feet again, after Onslaught, after Morgan le Fay, and Steve had put together one of the best Avengers teams Tony had seen in years. Fighting at Steve's side, he already knew, was going to be amazing.

But that hadn't been all of it. It had been a full ten years since he'd met Steve, a decade of friendship, and Tony had finally decided that now was the time to stop dancing around it. He liked Steve. He was almost positive that Steve liked him back. And he was finally, finally going to do something about it. He'd made plans. He'd fretted. He'd made more plans. And then he'd given up and circled today's date on the calendar. He'd given himself a deadline. There was no sense wasting more time. Today. He'd tell Steve how he felt about him.

"Hey, Steve?" Tony had poked his head into the library, where Steve was reading. _Be cool, Stark. Be calm. You can do this._ "You got a minute?"

His palms had been sweating.

Steve had put down his copy of _The Lost World_ , looked up at him, and smiled that gorgeous smile. "Sure. What can I do for you?"

He'd rehearsed the words in his head: _I wanted to tell you how important you are to me. We've been friends for so long, and I wanted to tell you what I felt for you. What I feel for you. I hope you feel the same way._

Tony had opened his mouth... and the goddamn Avengers alert had gone off. 

So much for that.

Ka-Zar had asked for the Avengers' help. He'd said that there were strange energy fluctuations, and that he'd spotted AIM beekeepers skulking around. He'd suspected they were in league with Sauron. And he'd asked the Avengers, of course, if they could possibly check it out.

It had only been Steve and Tony on duty; everyone else had been out. This was going to be easy, Tony had told himself. They didn't need more than two people. And maybe this time they wouldn't even crash.

Tony should have remembered that optimism never got him very far.

One engine out wouldn't have been a problem. Two engines would have been fine. Hell, knock all five out and he would have found a place to put the jet down eventually. It wasn't like he was bad at this. He could handle the electromagnetic oddities, no sweat, and he had a decent number of Savage Land crashes under his belt by now. But the problem had become exponentially worse when, after the second engine had failed, someone on the ground—Tony was suspecting AIM—had brought a surface-to-air missile to the party and thereby _entirely ruined_ Tony's beautiful day, and also any chance of landing safely.

The Quinjet's nose tipped down. The Savage Land was spread out before them, lush and verdant—and getting closer at a speed that was way, way too fast. A flock of pteranodons swooped beneath them, and then scattered in all directions as the jet dropped through them.

"Hey, Cap!" Tony yelled, boosting the suit amplification so his voice carried over the whooping alarms.

Steve was, of course, preternaturally calm. "Yeah?"

"So about that landing we're about to have...?"

Steve's eyes were fixed on the ground ahead. "What about it?"

THIRTY SECONDS TO IMPACT, the Quinjet HUD blared, as Tony slammed the emergency release on his harness. Tony glanced over at Steve again. Steve had his shield—his triangular shield, since his regular vibranium shield was still missing—strapped to his back, which didn't leave room for such luxuries as a parachute. Tony wasn't particularly surprised. Steve always seemed to forget he couldn't actually fly.

"Time to bail out," Tony said, grimly. "Come on. I'll be your parachute."

Steve was unclipping his harness as Tony leaped out of his seat. The harness straps dangled as Steve vaulted up and the Quinjet tilted even more precariously downward.

Tony wrapped one arm around Steve, working his hand underneath the shield, pressing against Steve's back. "Hold on to me."

In a long-practiced move, Steve hugged him tight and stepped up, getting his feet on top of the jet boots. They wobbled as the jet lurched, and Tony thought for a horrifying second that he might drop him.

He was going to be drastically off-balance. It couldn't be helped. He needed one hand free to get out of here, but he also needed to hold onto Steve, because the turbulence was going to be brutal. And he wasn't about to begin this new era of this brand-new Avengers team by letting Captain America go splat in the middle of Antarctica.

"Ready?"

At the edge of his field of vision, Steve's cowl bobbed. "Ready."

Tony raised his hand straight up, charged the repulsor, and blasted the top of the Quinjet wide open. Metal curled and disintegrated, and above him there was only blue sky. A close fit, but there'd be enough room. Barely.

There was an awful creaking, scraping noise, followed by a teeth-rattling jolt. Most likely that was the fourth engine gone. Smoke was billowing up around them; the clear air was fogged. They had to get out of here right now.

He held Steve tighter, hit the bootjets, and rocketed up into the sky.

In five seconds, they were clear of the Quinjet, which tumbled beneath them as Tony coasted around an archaeopteryx and savored his victory. They were both alive. They'd made it.

UNKNOWN ENERGY SURGE, the suit HUD said. The words fuzzed out, dimmed, and flickered back on at half power. LONG RANGE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM FAILURE. FLIGHT SYSTEM FAILURE PROJECTED.

Shit.

Whatever had killed the Quinjet engines was killing his armor.

"Cap, we've got another problem," Tony said, and that was when the bootjets cut out.

They dropped. He half-imagined he could feel the armor flex as Steve's arms tightened around him—and then after twenty feet, the jets caught again. But it wasn't going to be enough. They were slow, sluggish, unresponsive, the power ebbing out of them. FLIGHT SYSTEM POWER DRAIN, the HUD informed him.

"I'm gonna need both my hands free!" Tony yelled, and there was only a faint crackling echo of his voice in the suit; God, he hoped local comms were still working. "Hold on tight!"

Steve obligingly shifted his grip, and Tony flung his hands out, funneling as much power as he could into the palm repulsors, which seemed to be unaffected. It wasn't great. He couldn't maneuver worth a damn, and he'd never practiced a hands-only landing while encumbered—and Steve wasn't exactly light—but he was going to be able to get them on the ground. Probably. It wasn't like there were other options.

Beneath them, the Quinjet caught a wingtip on the highest of the treetops of the jungle spread out below, cartwheeled, and hit the ground. Metal split at the seams as the body of the jet slid forward through splintered trees and torn vines, trailing smoke and fire. Tony swallowed hard.

That was going to be them next if he couldn't land safely.

But they were going to make it. Hell, he even still had the bootjets, for right now. They were descending roughly, dropping and catching and dropping again, and Tony was just barely managing to stabilize them so they didn't tip head-down. They were going to make it. They were going to—

ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE DETECTED, the HUD said, and Tony had another half-second of warning before everything went black.

Oh, no.

"Steve!" Tony yelled, and his voice echoed in the helmet, unamplified and alone.

The world dropped out from under him.

He had a 0.5% reserve, which wasn't going to be enough to land on, but if he was very lucky it was going to keep them from breaking their necks. He threw his head back against the auxiliary power switch, and the HUD glowed amber, rebooting as they fell and fell, too fast.

Tony did the only thing he could: he pushed the power out to the gauntlets, rolled onto his back, and locked the armor joints, putting everything he had into stabilization. If it was a choice between him and Steve, he was going to cushion Steve's impact with everything in him.

The armor creaked as Steve's hands dug into his shoulders, and Tony was suddenly grateful that Steve couldn't see his face.

ALERT: ALTITUDE WARNING, the suit blared, an angry alarm. What a way to go.

Tony shut his eyes.

They hit the trees.

A branch slammed into the back of Tony's head, and then there was nothing.

* * *

Everything hurt.

After a few lurching, nauseous seconds, the pain localized: an almost-familiar dull throbbing at the back of his skull, and a stranger, newer, bright pain stabbing its way through Tony's back, just to the left of his spine. With a sudden spike of horror, the first thing Tony did was twitch his toes. _Not paralyzed. Not again._ The relief that swept through him was nowhere near as good as anesthesia would have been, but it would have to do.

His helmet was off, he realized, and his head was tipped back against uneven ground, maybe a tree root. It was humid, and sweat was cooling on his cheekbones. A stickier wetness at his temple was probably blood. And he smelled... leather? Something leather was touching his face, soft and gentle, and that was familiar too. Safe. Was it a hand? A glove?

_Steve_.

Tony blinked.

"Oh, thank goodness," Steve breathed, the words full of unfeigned relief. He was blurry and too close, and then Tony blinked again and the world resolved into a sharper focus.

Steve's hand fell away. Tony barely stopped himself from pushing himself up and trying to find that reassuring, safe warmth again.

Steve was crouched next to him. There was a smear of dirt on his shoulder, his jaw was scraped, and his uniform shirt was missing a few scales—but he looked like he was basically okay. Tony smiled up at him, feeling a little dazed, a little loopy, overwhelmingly pleased. He'd gotten Steve to the ground alive and in one piece. Good.

"I didn't want to move you more than I had to," Steve said, apologetically. "Wasn't sure about your spine. I did jostle you a bit. Sorry about that."

Tony obligingly lifted one leg—huh, well, he had the servos back in the armor, at least—and set it down again. He'd have to check the rest of the armor when Steve gave him the helmet back. He didn't feel much like moving to get it himself right this second. Fuck, but his back hurt, a sharp constant throb. It was wet, too. That was blood. That was—oh, fuck, the armor was dented. That was a plate edge digging in.

Well, there was nothing he could do about that, because he wasn't about to take the armor off. They were stranded in the Savage Land. It wasn't like he was going to walk around defenseless.

Steve watched him and nodded, his jaw tight. Steve was holding himself more carefully than he usually did. Gingerly, maybe. God, was he hurt?

"Are you okay?" Tony asked, and his urgent voice scraped his throat raw.

"You're asking me if _I'm_ fine?" Steve raised an eyebrow. "I'm perfectly fine. _You're_ the one who hit a tree and passed out. I had to catch you and carry you the rest of the way down. Got you down here, got your helmet off, and you were still unconscious." He coughed and glanced away. "I— I wasn't sure if you were ever going to wake up."

Steve cared. Of course he did. That wasn't news.

This would be a really bad time to ask him out. 

At the very least, Steve was probably going to blame whatever Tony said on his head injury.

Tony glanced around. The canopy was dozens, maybe hundreds of feet above them. Steve had carried him a long way down. "Well. Uh. Thanks for the ride." He swallowed. "How long was I out?"

"Too long." Steve's voice was grave. And then he sighed. "Maybe fifteen minutes since the impact."

"Well, hey." Tony made himself smile. "I'm all better now."

In reply, Steve leaned toward him. Tony's poor overtaxed heart kicked into high gear, and his mind was a hum of _Steve Steve Steve yes_ and— oh. Steve was squinting at his eyes, one and then the other.

This wasn't love. This was first aid. Goddammit.

"Your pupils are the same size," Steve pronounced, as Tony's hopes sank, and Steve held up two gloved fingers. "How many?"

"Two," Tony said, glumly, and Steve switched to one finger, trailing it back and forth in front of Tony's field of vision.

"Well, you're tracking fine, and you're talking fine," Steve said, matter-of-fact, all business now. "But I don't like the look of that wound. Your forehead's still bleeding. Headache? Nausea? Dizziness?"

Everything swooped, a little, when Tony shook his head, but he did it anyway just to prove he could. "Not any worse than I'd expect. And I have definitely had worse."

Besides, Steve knew that head wounds always looked worse than they really were.

Steve's stare was withering. "I know." He smiled a lopsided smile. "Doesn't mean I can't be concerned anyway, Shellhead. Your actual head's not as hard as that helmet of yours, even if you like to pretend it is. And I— I just worry, okay?"

It was sweet, even if he didn't mean it like Tony wanted him to mean it.

"Look," Tony said, "I promise I'll get checked out when we get home. But right now I'm good enough for government work." He gave Steve his best smile.

Steve snorted. "Yeah, the new liaison's going to have his hands full writing this up."

"Hey, Freeman has to be better than Gyrich."

"Literally anyone in the world is better than Gyrich," Steve said, with feeling, and he squinted again. "Hey, are you all right? Any other injuries I should know about?"

Tony had made the mistake of trying to push himself upright, and the dented backplate had shifted and scraped a new patch of skin as he moved. Jesus, that hurt. Tony gritted his teeth. One breath, two, and then the plate settled into its new place. He was okay. He was going to be okay. It was barely even pressing in anymore. He was sure it would start clotting soon. Besides, what was Steve going to do for him? Nothing. There wasn't anything he could do for Tony without getting him out of the suit, and that wasn't an option.

"Fine," Tony lied. "Just a bit banged up. Nothing to worry about." He gestured at the metal glint a few feet away. "Could you pass me my helmet? I want to get a systems report."

Steve smiled. "Sure thing."

The helmet settled heavily into Tony's hands, and then even more heavily over Tony's head, and he waited in the dimness for an alarming amount of time before the HUD booted up, and an even longer time before the diagnostic came back.

The first thing Tony did was mute the medical warnings about his back. He was handling this.

"The suit's not doing great, Cap," he said, relaying the rest of the warnings. "Still, it could be worse. I have some power back, but not all of it. I can walk, and I have minimally-powered repulsors and local comms. Flight's out, as are long-range comms. The comms are being blocked by whatever took the Quinjet down. Probably one of AIM's little presents. So we can't call for help. I'm willing to bet your identicard is also not transmitting."

Frowning, Steve fished his card out of his belt patch, jabbed at it with his thumb, frowned more, and put it back in his pouch before looking up. "So we're stuck here?" The look in his eyes was full of a surprising amount of despair.

"Not quite." Tony let himself smile behind the mask, even though Steve couldn't see it. "I came prepared. The Quinjet's comms link with Avengers Mansion had a dead man's switch. We drop out of communication, and the mansion gets a telemetry report with our last known position and heading."

Steve's grin was _gorgeous_. "You're brilliant!"

Tony felt his face go hot, and he was glad Steve couldn't see him. "It's not perfect," he said. "It's a work in progress, and the data burst won't trigger an alert for another hour, and even then the team still has to get down here, hopefully without crashing the other Quinjet. I can set a local rescue beacon, by the way," Tony added. "Once they get here, they should be able to find us, even if the range isn't great."

"You don't think Sauron or AIM will find us first?"

"Eh," Tony said. "Let them come. We can take 'em."

Steve laughed, a joyful sound, and Tony loved it. "Sounds good. You think we should stay near the Quinjet wreck? They'll probably start the search there." He pointed in what for Tony was an entirely meaningless direction, but at least Steve knew where they were going. "It's maybe half a mile that way. I saw it while climbing down."

Tony opened his mouth, ready to agree, because, yes, that sounded perfectly reasonable—

A roar resounded from the direction Steve had pointed in.

Tony abruptly remembered there were other threats here besides Sauron and AIM.

Steve's eyes went wide, and his face drained of color.

The dinosaur roared again, louder. Maybe closer.

"That's a tyrannosaur," Tony said, grimly. "Or something similar, anyway. I think maybe we should try to find cover. Shelter. Something."

"I'm with you." Steve's voice resounded in fervent agreement, and he pointed in... well, at least it was the opposite direction. "There are mountains over there. They might have caves. Someplace we can hide."

It wasn't a certainty, but at this point Tony was willing to take a faint hope over fighting a tyrannosaurus rex without flight capability and with half-powered repulsor rays. From the look on Steve's face, he agreed.

"Okay," Tony said, and he pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the renewed stabbing in his back. He had bigger problems, and he definitely wasn't taking the suit off now. "Let's get out of here."

Steve turned and started walking, the triangular shield on his back gleaming in the patches of light from overhead that filtered through the canopy. Tony steadied himself, set the suit's local-area beacon to broadcast, and followed.

* * *

The forest wasn't quiet.

Far above them were the cries of birds and the screeches of what could only be pterodactyls. Around them the foliage moved, and there were the chirps, tweets, and hisses of creatures lurking in the underbrush. And, of course, there were the distant, deep roars, terrorizing Tony on some primal, atavistic level. Every part of him knew not to be here—except the parts of him that were currently trudging forward.

Each successive sound put Tony more and more on edge. Judging by the way Steve was raising his shield with every roar, he felt it too. Even Captain America was afraid of a tyrannosaurus rex. Well, maybe not afraid. Steve didn't really do _afraid_ like normal people. But it was very clear that he wasn't in favor of meeting it.

It was beginning to worry Tony that they'd been hiking for a good half hour and he hadn't actually _seen_ any dinosaurs.

Oh, he'd heard them, all right, or what was probably them—the rustling of branches and leaves, their calls to each other that were a little too eerie to be birdsong—but he hadn't seen them, and that was making him nervous. Because if he didn't see the small ones, the only thing he could think was that they were hiding from the big ones.

In front of him, Steve raised his shield again, fractionally higher; he wondered if Steve was nervous.

They'd kept conversation to a minimum—there was no sense in drawing a map for the carnivores—so the only noise Tony could hear that belonged to the two of them was the squelching of their boots in the mud and his own labored breathing inside the helmet. 

The armor had given him an analgesic shot—otherwise he suspected he wouldn't be walking at all—but it sure felt like it wasn't doing much.

Tony raised his leg high to step over a fallen tree limb, and his back protested as the edge of the armor plate dug in more. He made sure the external speakers were muted as he gasped in sudden renewed agony. He could picture the crimson edge of the panel, sharp and deadly, twisting, pressing into his flesh. There was an unpleasant wetness over his hip.

The wound was going to clot sometime, he was sure. He just needed to stop moving. They'd get to shelter soon. They had to get to shelter soon.

MEDICAL ATTENTION REQUIRED, the HUD flashed, and the outline helpfully pointed to his lower back. No shit.

Tony breathed in, breathed out, clenched his jaw, and kept moving. They could do this.

Soon they came to a clearing—a break in the trees, with only muddy, moss-covered roots and vines ahead of them for the next twenty or thirty feet. The sky above was bright, a dazzling blue, and the sun shone full and unobstructed onto the forest floor, illuminating the tips of the overhanging leaves at the edges of the circle. Their makeshift path, the path Steve had been cutting by bashing away vines with the tip of his triangular shield, was bisected by a huge tree, the only obstacle between them and the clearing. Tony waited for Steve to brush aside the last vine and vault over the roots. Steve lifted his shield high, angled it—

—and stopped dead.

"Hold still."

Steve had switched to the subvocal mics, talking near-soundlessly, and his voice in Tony's ear had the perfect calmness he got in the moments before battle started—when they were facing something hideous and, as always, Steve was resolutely refusing to panic about it.

Something very bad was about to happen.

Tony switched to infrared, pushed out on the local sensors, and... oh, hell.

They weren't alone.

There were four dinosaurs in the clearing, each of them about six feet tall; he couldn't get a species identification just from the heatmap, unfortunately. And then something moved, over Steve's shoulder, within the clearing, and he snapped off the sensors and went to visual.

Fuck. They were raptors. The big ones. Tony could only see about one and a half of them from this vantage point, but the one he could see was definitely a raptor. Sauron—or someone—must have modernized them since he'd last been here, because this one was covered in sleek brown feathers, nose to tail, with an iridescent blue crest atop its head and another bushy clump of blue feathers at its tail-tip. Feathered, its arms looked more like stubby wings, but its claws—including the huge claws on its feet—were razor-sharp.

"What the hell is that?" Steve whispered.

"A Utahraptor?" Tony frowned. "I think that's the name, anyway? The biggest of the raptors. Sorry, my dinosaur knowledge has faded a bit since I was eight. You know how it goes."

"You mean it's a _dinosaur_?" Even through the subvocalized comms, Steve just sounded confused. "It's got _feathers_."

Oh. Oh, right. Steve had clearly missed that. "Yeah," Tony told him. "That was a relatively recent discovery, actually. Sauron must have decided that some of his dinosaurs needed an upgrade."

And then Tony stared in bewildered horror, as the closest raptor in the clearing jerked its head around into Tony's line of sight. It opened its mouth to reveal pointed, bloodied teeth. It drooled disgusting, viscous saliva.

The saliva dripped on the ground cover, verdant foliage, which promptly withered and turned dark and desiccated, with an ominous hissing noise that Tony associated with highly-concentrated acid.

Tony realized that the raptor's claws, too, had a similar but not identical sheen, coated with some kind of liquid. Probably poison.

"Holy shit," Tony breathed, and he tried in vain to quell the terror within him. "Okay, as a man of science, I am deeply offended. Raptors aren't _venomous_."

"Oh," Steve said, in a dry voice that was probably masking a fair amount of nervousness, "does that mean you're volunteering to go tell Sauron he made a mistake?"

Tony snorted.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Steve muttered.

Okay. Options. They needed a plan. "Unless Sauron's given them massive vision improvements, they still see like predators. They're attracted to motion." God, he hoped Jurassic Park hadn't lied to him. "So maybe if we stay right here, and stand very still—"

As he spoke, a second raptor moved into view, this one green-crested, and it was... lifting its head?

Oh, God, it was sniffing the air.

He was wounded. He was bleeding. He was _prey_. And it could smell him. And then it took a step in their direction and crouched, tensing to leap.

"Never mind!" Tony yelled. "Block! They're coming!"

Steve lifted his shield high above him, and that was when the raptor jumped. It leaped high, easily clearing their heads, and fell upon Steve, claws out, screaming—and Steve swung his shield up and out like he was playing baseball, colliding in midair with a scrape of nails on metal. Tony bet Steve was wishing he still had his vibranium shield.

Pushing forward like a battering ram, Steve stumbled into the clearing, into the sunlight, and Tony finally got a full view of the area. Steve threw this raptor into the blue-crested one, as the other two turned and dropped their jaws. Four against one, oh God, and they could poison him. Tony was armored up, but Steve had nothing except his uniform, and that shield wasn't made of anything special anymore.

Tony raised his hands as he frantically dialed up the power gain. ERROR: REPULSORS NOT AT COMBAT POWER, the HUD informed him. 50% POWER AVAILABLE IN THREE MINUTES.

Steve could be mauled to death in three minutes.

"Stay clear!" Tony called out, over the comms. "Don't let them touch you! Don't let them get their claws in you!"

As he said it he realized there was another problem with Steve's shield: he couldn't throw it. If Steve was going to fight them at all, he was going to have to do it close up. And that meant they could really, really hurt him. Sure, maybe with the serum, Steve could shrug off poison, but Tony didn't want to test that theory. And that acid couldn't be good for anybody.

"I'm trying!" Steve yelled back, and the yell turned into a groan of exertion as he slammed the tip of his shield into the nearest raptor's throat.

The raptor screamed and swiped at him with a claw, barely missing him.

Fuck it. Tony might not have working repulsors, but he was wearing full-body combat armor, and that meant he was a damn sight safer than Steve was. And there wasn't any reason he couldn't punch a dinosaur in the face.

Tony curled his gauntleted hands into fists, switched the comms to external, and stepped into the clearing.

Two of the raptors turned to stare at him.

"Hey, lizards!" Tony yelled. "Yeah, you! Come and get me!"

Okay, maybe the banter needed some work, but it was good enough—because one of the raptors started stalking toward him. It had a few inches on Tony even in the armor, and its feathers were a mottled gray, banded blue on its forelimbs. There was a scar across its snout, where the feathers were missing in a huge ragged patch. This one had fought and won before.

Well, it hadn't fought Tony.

Swinging his shield again, Steve glanced over his shoulder. "Tony, what in God's name are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Tony's voice came out of him low and hoarse, as he watched the raptor begin to circle him. "I'm saving your goddamn life!"

Tony punched the raptor as hard as he could, a left hook to the side of its head—and given that his punches were backed by powered armor, _as hard as he could_ meant that the raptor screeched and recoiled, hopping backwards, tail swinging wildly as it rebalanced itself, beginning to retreat into the forest.

_Yeah, I got you_ , Tony thought, viciously, raising his fists high. He turned around. _Now, where was that second raptor...?_

There was a hideous scream, and then the second raptor leaped on Tony from behind.

The HUD flashed impact warnings as Tony toppled forward. The effect was much like being hit by a truck, or by the Wrecking Crew on a very bad day—but at least the Wrecker never screamed like that, high and inhuman, and the Wrecker didn't have deadly, poison-tipped claws. Tony sank face-down into the mud as the HUD went fuzzy and flashed errors. He could use those repulsors about now.

If that raptor could pry off the armor, his life was about to get a whole lot shorter.

The armor creaked and flexed around him. There was a heavy pressure between his shoulder blades, and the thin, high scrabbling of claws.

Tony held his breath.

The claws still scratched.

ARMOR INTEGRITY 100%, the HUD informed him.

Tony exhaled. Okay. Good. He was safe. He was fine. He was going to be—

The raptor shifted its weight and put its foot down on Tony's lower back, where the bent plating dug into his skin.

Everything went white-hot with pain. Tony's stomach roiled. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Someone was crying, screaming, and he realized it was him.

And then he realized he hadn't muted the comms. Steve had heard him.

"Tony!"

Steve yelled his name, and the raptor stepped off Tony's back in the same instant that he looked up. Steve was staring at him, frozen, terrified, wide-eyed, and he'd lowered the shield, and he wasn't even looking at the raptors, no no _no no no no_ —

"Watch out!" Tony yelled.

The warning was too late. The blue-crested raptor had leaped upon Steve, knocking his shield out of the way, bowling him over. Claws and scale mail gleamed in the sun, and God oh God, Steve was down, Steve's uniform was being shredded in places, and there was blood, blood everywhere—

Words floated in front of Tony's eyes: REPULSORS ONLINE.

In a split-second, Tony had firing solutions.

At half-power, the repulsor rays lashed out from Tony's palms and scored a path down the side of the raptor attacking Steve, and it jumped off him with a cry and fled. The next raptor was a similarly easy target, and it turned tail to follow its companion as Tony raked a beam across its chest.

Steve was lying on his back in the mud, one hand stretched toward his shield. He wasn't standing up.

Rerouting every scrap of power to the servos, Tony pushed himself to his knees, throwing the raptor off his back, and then he rolled and brought up his hands. He didn't even need to shoot. The raptor hissed, wriggled to its feet, and ran.

He'd fought off the raptors. But was he too late?

"Steve!" Tony cried out, and in another instant he was on his feet and at Steve's side.

Steve struggled in the mud, and—oh God—the back and side of his leg was slashed, from his calf up to almost his hip, the wounds ragged and seeping blood. It hadn't bitten him, and that was good—but Tony had no idea what those claws did, and they had sure looked like they were coated with something.

Tony's heart was pounding. "Steve, talk to me. Are you okay?"

Steve wasn't standing up. He couldn't get his leg under him, and his face where the cowl wasn't covering it was bone-white and clammy. His teeth were gritted, his jaw clenched, and there were tears in his eyes.

Oh, God, this was all Tony's fault. Steve had been distracted, because Tony had cried out, because he just hadn't been strong enough.

"I _can't_ ," Steve gritted out, which were probably the two most demoralizing words to hear from Captain America. He breathed out, a horrible, agonized panting that ended in a keening whimper. "I— I can't stand up."

"Okay," Tony said. "It's going to be all right." This was probably sort of a lie; Jesus, his leg was a mess. But he'd heal, right? He had the serum. He had to heal. "I've got you. We're going to get out of here. I'm going to get you somewhere safe, okay?"

Steve nodded tightly. "The raptors?"

"Gone. You're okay," Tony repeated. "Here, let me get your shield for you first."

Steve had already lost one shield. They weren't leaving this one behind. Tony picked it up from the mud and hooked it onto his back with an electromagnetic click; it wasn't what he'd intended the magnetization feature for—at least in his own armor, because he had given Steve a recall feature once a long time ago—but it was working. At least something was going right.

"All right," Tony reported. "I've got your shield. Time to get you. Deep breath, Cap. I'm going to lift you—"

Tony knelt down and slid his arms under Steve, supporting him at the shoulders and—very carefully—under his knees. Steve hissed out another pained breath and said nothing as Tony rose to his feet. The armor plate on his back shifted again, and Tony bit down on another moan as blood trickled over his hip.

MEDICAL ALERT, the HUD said again, and Tony sighed and toggled the warning off once again.

He didn't have a choice. He had to keep the suit on. He needed it to lift Steve.

"Everything okay?"

Steve nodded, reaching a hand up to Tony's shoulder to anchor himself. "I'm okay," Steve rasped.

Steve was going to heal. The serum was going to kick in. It had to.

"Okay," Tony repeated. "I've got you. Let's go."

He turned toward the mountains, and he started walking again, pain shooting through him with every step and Steve cradled in his arms.

* * *

Steve wasn't getting better.

Tony had seen Steve in combat a hell of a lot, and for the most part Steve shook off injuries and kept going. On the rare occasions he'd been taken off his feet, he was up again in—usually—a few hours. No more than a day. And there was always an upward slope of progress. At the speed the serum worked, he looked visibly better at a measurable rate. He always looked healthier, practically by the second.

As they headed onward, as the minutes passed, Steve was getting obviously worse. His face went from gray and clammy to flushed, too bright—past normal and out the other side.

"Tony," Steve breathed. His jaw was tight. "It— it really hurts. It's burning. My leg. It's like it's on fire."

If Steve was admitting it at all, that meant the pain had to be horrific. Whatever the raptors had done to him was clearly overwhelming the serum.

"It's going to be okay," Tony repeated, the same thing he'd been saying for the past ten minutes, which was becoming more and more of a lie.

They couldn't stop to examine Steve's leg. They needed to get somewhere safe.

Steve was going to be okay. The serum was going to kick in, and they were both going to be able to rest, and then maybe Tony could get the armor off and tend to his own wounds. The pain in his back was aching but predictable now, a solid deep throbbing combined with the stinging wet scrape of the metal against his back as he moved.

It felt like Steve was heavier and heavier in his arms.

The mountains couldn't be much farther away. They'd been walking for, what, half an hour? It couldn't be more than another twenty minutes. Tony glanced up and checked the HUD time, which was unhelpfully flashing 00:00. At least he still had the local beacon. The Avengers were going to come. The Avengers were going to find them. They just had to survive until then.

"I'm sorry," Steve whispered, his face turned against Tony's chest.

Tony shook his head, readjusted his grip on Steve, and kept plodding forward. "You've done nothing wrong, Steve."

He glanced down; Steve's throat worked slowly as he forced himself to swallow. There was sweat beading on Steve's neck. He resolutely didn't look over at Steve's leg.

"I'm holding you back." Tony had to strain to hear him. "I'm injured. I— I endangered you, and I got distracted, and now I'm—" Steve's hand clenched, frighteningly weak, on Tony's armored shoulder— "I'm not carrying my own weight."

"Well, literally, no, you're not," Tony told him, and he couldn't help but smile, even though Steve couldn't see it. "But that's okay. I told you already. I've got you."

A smile flitted over Steve's face, briefly, ended by a pained gasp. "It's not fair. You shouldn't have to."

"It's not about being fair," Tony said, firmly. "You know that. And you know you'd do the same for me. For any of us."

Steve licked his lips and nodded. "I would, but—okay." He was too tired to disagree. That was also concerning.

They were almost to the mountains. There had to be somewhere safe to rest and hide there.

God, what if there wasn't?

He'd worry about that when they got there. He wasn't giving up. He couldn't. He had to stay strong for Steve. He took another step and tried not to think about his back.

Keep walking. One foot in front of the other. He could do this.

* * *

Steve was actually the one who saw it first.

Tony had his head down, concentrating on the path in front of them, on taking each step one at a time. And then Steve's hand slid off his shoulder, and Tony's head snapped up in alarm.

Steve was okay. Steve was pointing. Well, okay, it was really more like vaguely flinging his arm out and letting it fall, but it meant he had some life left in him. "Look!"

The mountains were here, looming in front of them. And right here, at the base of the nearest one, was a widening crack in the stone, half-hidden by foliage: a cave.

Tony grinned. "Looks good to me."

The cave, from the outside, was perfect. Once they got past the bushes, the cave opening was at least ten feet tall; they'd be able to stand up inside. The entrance was flat and smooth.

Walking up to the cave, Tony peered inside. It went back at least twenty or thirty feet, which was good enough for their purposes.

"Okay," Tony announced. "We're here."

Slowly, carefully, he set Steve down, propping Steve's back up against the cave wall. Steve sighed and tipped his head back. His hand reached up toward his head, an aborted motion, as if he didn't even have enough strength to get his cowl off. Even pointing at the cave had taken a lot out of him, obviously. "Tony, can you...?"

"Yeah," Tony said, instantly. "Yeah, of course."

He didn't have as much dexterity with the gauntlets on as he wanted, and he didn't want to chance hurting Steve more. It was the work of a few seconds to get his gauntlets off, followed by his helmet—bonus, no more medical alerts—and drop them on the ground. He tugged Steve's shield off his back and laid it on his other side for good measure. Maybe Steve would feel better having it.

His hands bumped Steve's, and he tugged off Steve's gloves for him; Steve smiled in gratitude.

When he put his hands to Steve's face to slide the cowl off, Steve's skin was fever-hot, and everything in Tony twisted up into a knot of anxiety. He was burning up. This wasn't good. This really wasn't good. He let his hands linger on Steve's face, let his fingers slide through Steve's sweaty hair. He was doing this for Steve, he told himself. Steve needed the comfort. Steve needed the contact.

Steve turned his head, pushing against Tony's hands, and it seemed for an instant that the pained lines on Steve's face went a little shallower.

"Mmm," Steve said. "That's good. Nice and cool."

It wasn't personal. Steve wasn't doing well. It didn't mean what Tony wanted it to mean.

Nevertheless, he couldn't make himself let go. He slid his hand behind Steve's head, so that Steve could have some kind of cushion between him and the solid rock of the cave wall, and Steve looked up at him with a little smile of gratitude.

But still, he wasn't getting any better.

"Hey," Tony wondered, "in your pouches, what kind of medication do you have? Anything that would work on you?"

Steve shook his head, wobbling back and forth against Tony's cupped hand. "No," he said, and his voice was hoarse. "Not— not high enough dosages for me."

Tony sighed. There went that idea. Of course Steve didn't carry meds for himself; he had the serum, so he didn't need them. Whatever the raptors had done, Steve was going to have to kick it on his own. The serum needed to start working.

Of course, if Steve was carrying medication, it would work on Tony, he thought, as his back twinged again, with a renewed smear of blood across the inside of the suit. And then he realized: he couldn't ask Steve for medication. If he told Steve why he needed it, Steve was going to make him take the suit off. And the wound was bad enough that he was going to need to put pressure on it, but right now neither of them could do that; he didn't have the reach, and Steve didn't have the strength. The suit was probably actually doing a better job keeping him stable than either of them could. He couldn't take it off.

Okay. He could do this. He just had to stay conscious until the team got here.

There was no point thinking about himself. Steve was far worse off than he was. He glanced down at Steve's leg and wished he hadn't; it was a bloody mess, drying and smearing, soaking into the leather.

"Can I...?" Tony asked, motioning at Steve's thigh, and Steve nodded and gritted his teeth.

Steve hissed as Tony lifted a bit of the leather that remained of his uniform trousers and peeled it back. The wound was huge, with long clotting slashes running in parallel down his leg, but what was most concerning was the bright redness radiating around it, traveling up his leg. Infection? Poison? It was bad.

"Don't look now," Tony told him, "but I think you've been poisoned." He let the uniform fall back into place and met Steve's gaze. Steve, of course, looked back in grim determination, but his eyes were clouded in pain.

"Yeah." Steve's mouth twitched weakly. "I kind of figured." He breathed out. "It hurts. It hurts so much."

"It's going to be all right," Tony told him. "I'm sure the serum will catch up."

"I hope so," Steve said, his voice gone faint, and then he turned his head to the side, to peer deeper into the cave. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

Tony looked in the direction Steve had indicated. Nothing, He waited. He waited more. And then he saw it. Something was moving, low to the ground. More than one of them.

"It's going to be okay," Tony said, once again. He still had weapons. He could protect Steve.

He fumbled behind himself for a gauntlet as Steve flailed uselessly for his shield, and that was when the creature shuffled into the light at the entrance of the cave.

It was a dinosaur.

But where the raptors had been terrifying, this was anything but. For one thing, it was clearly a herbivore. For another thing it was _tiny_. It looked like nothing so much as a tiny hornless triceratops, with its beaked mouth and its long skull flaring back in a frilled, bony plate. It was maybe two feet long, if that, and maybe a foot tall. It was feathered, gorgeously so, as the raptors had been, but more brightly.

"Oh," Steve said, a noise of quiet amazement. "Hey, there, little fella."

The dinosaur tilted its head to one side and trilled, a curious noise. Two more of the same species appeared behind it. They were shuffling backwards, wary, like they weren't quite certain what to make of these intruders in their cave.

"Hi," Tony told the dinosaurs. "We come in peace. We're just going to stay here for a bit, if that's okay. Not a threat."

The first dinosaur edged nervously forward.

Steve smiled and held out a shaking hand.

And even dinosaurs, it seemed, liked Captain America, because the little dinosaur shuffled even closer, regarded him from inches away, and then butted its head into Steve's palm, trilling happily.

Steve was smiling, as if for an instant he'd forgotten all the pain. "Would you look at that?" he murmured. "It's so soft."

The dinosaur was practically purring. It climbed over Steve's—thankfully uninjured—leg and leaned up against him. One of the other dinosaurs, emboldened by its companion's success, picked its way across the cave to come up on their other side, closer to Tony. It tilted its head up and trilled, and Tony hesitantly petted it with two fingers. It trilled even louder.

"There's something to tell the team about," Tony said, as the third dinosaur attempted to fit its head inside Tony's abandoned helmet.

Steve groaned, and his hand fell away from the little dinosaur; urgently, helplessly, Tony turned toward him again, splaying his own hand over Steve's chest, like he could hold him, like that could make him better. God, there was nothing he could do.

[](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sineala/73031/45455/45455_original.png)

"You'll have to tell the team for me." Steve's voice was thready, and he was even hotter to the touch. "I'm not— I'm not going to make it, Tony."

Oh, God, no. This couldn't be happening.

"Hey, no," Tony told him. "Don't talk like that. You're going to be okay."

A shudder passed through Steve; the dinosaur that had been leaning on him yelped and jumped up. Steve's eyes fluttered and fell shut. He was shaking. A seizure?

This was bad. This was really, really bad.

"My shield," Steve rasped, flinging a hand out wildly, his eyes still shut. "Shield. Need my shield. Have to— have to— I need it."

Tony leaned over Steve, ignoring the sudden renewed stabbing in his back as best he could, and he picked the shield up and pushed it into Steve's hands. "Shh. Here you go."

He didn't think Steve had even heard him. Steve's hands roamed over the metal like he was looking for something. His fingers caught on the angled points, the edges of the triangle. Steve swung his head back and forth, and tears leaked from his eyes.

"No, my _real_ shield," Steve said, insistently. "Where is it?"

Jesus. Tony felt lower than dirt. Here Steve was, probably delirious, maybe _dying_ , and the only thing he wanted was something Tony couldn't give him.

"We lost it," Tony said, through the tightness in his throat. "We lost it, Steve. It's somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic. I'm so sorry."

Steve opened his eyes, and his head swung in Tony's direction. His gaze was blank, unfocused, and the shield slid out of his hands and into the dirt. "Tony?" He said it like he hadn't even known Tony was there.

Tony cleared his throat. "Yeah? I'm here."

Steve's hand stretched forward and bumped into Tony's. "Don't go," he whispered. "Don't leave me. Please."

Tony wrapped his hand around Steve's. "I'm not leaving. I promise."

Steve shut his eyes, half-smiling—and then another shudder wracked him. His body jack-knifed as the convulsions rippled through him, and he sobbed aloud as his leg scraped the cave floor. For long moments there was nothing except shallow panting.

Steve squeezed Tony's fingertips with the barest amount of pressure, all strength gone. "The serum's not doing anything," he breathed. His face was streaked with tears. "It hurts so much. It's killing me."

Tony squeezed Steve's hand right back. "You have to hold on, okay? Come on. You can do this. The Avengers will be here soon. You can make it. I believe in you. Come on, Steve. You're Captain America. You don't give up."

That was who Steve was. He didn't give up. But if he had... then Tony had no idea what to do.

"It's been a privilege and an honor," Steve whispered, his eyes still shut. "I want you to know that, Tony." His lips parted in a smile. "You were the first person I met in the future, my first and best friend in this time, and it's been an honor to fight at your side. To be your friend." The words were slurred more and more. "I just want you to know how I— how I feel about you—"

He sighed and didn't say anything else.

Tony's heart felt like it was shredding itself into tiny pieces. "No, no, no," Tony blurted out, leaning over Steve, grabbing his other hand, biting back another whimper as the armor plate dug into his back. "Steve, we're not doing this. We're not having this conversation. You're going to make it. You have to make it."

Steve was silent. His eyes were shut. He was still breathing, but barely, far too shallowly, and he was hotter and hotter. His pulse under Tony's questing fingertips was weak.

He wasn't going to make it.

Tony felt hot, miserable tears drip down his face.

The little dinosaur, the one that had been cuddling Steve, trilled again, a rising sound of concern, and bumped Steve with its head.

Steve didn't move.

"Please," Tony said, and he was begging, he was praying, "please, Steve, don't do this to me. You have to wake up. You have to stay alive."

Nothing.

This couldn't be how it ended.

"It's not fair," Tony said, low and wretched, and he could barely see through the tears. "You want to know something, Steve? I was going to ask you out this morning."

Steve was perfectly still and silent.

"I really was." He gripped Steve's hands harder. "I've— God, Steve, I've been in love with you since the day I met you. And I don't know if you feel the same, but I... I was really hoping you'd give me a chance." He smiled a rueful smile. "I mean, okay, I don't even know if you're queer. Don't know if you know I am. But sometimes I thought, the way you look at me, the way you smile at me, I thought maybe you wanted to be more than friends."

It was a relief to say these words, to finally get it all out, even if Steve couldn't hear him, but God, he felt sick. Dizzy, maybe. Lightheaded. His back was pounding, ripped open. The armor felt slippery against his skin.

He'd probably lost a lot of blood.

Well, there wasn't anything he could do about that.

Tony licked his lips and kept talking. "I don't know what you would have said. I— I don't want to be your exception and I don't want to be your experiment, and I sure as hell don't want you to do it out of pity, but... I like to think you'd have told me yes." He paused, and he knew he was smiling, dazed from the thought alone—or maybe that was the blood loss. "I had it all planned out, you know. The best date for you. I'd take you out to dinner. Nothing fancy. I know you can do fancy. I've seen you do fancy." He smiled unsteadily. "We all know you're gorgeous in a tux, Cap. But that's not your favorite thing. So I'd keep it simple. Classic American food. Burgers and fries. Nothing too expensive. Not for the first date. There's plenty of time to spoil you later. I just— I'd want you to be comfortable, you know? I'd want you to have fun."

Steve still didn't move.

"We'd go see a movie after dinner, of course," Tony added. "I know we don't get a lot of free time, what with saving the world, but we'd make time. I don't know what's playing. We could find something. Maybe sci-fi. You like sci-fi. We could see something big and stupid with a lot of explosions and special effects. We'd get a big bag of popcorn. And maybe— maybe you'd let me hold your hand."

He glanced down. He was still clutching Steve's hands; Steve wasn't clutching him back anymore.

"And," Tony continued, and he could hardly talk through the lump in his throat, and he was crying again, and oh, wow, he really wasn't feeling very good, "if— if you had a good time, maybe you'd let me walk you home. Drive you home." He made himself smile. "I know it's a little silly when we already live together." He swallowed hard. "I'd go home with you. Walk you to your door. And if you really had a good time, maybe— maybe you'd let me kiss you."

He was sweating, cold and clammy. He blinked, dizzy; everything was swimming around him. He imagined his armor full of blood, sloshing with it.

"Don't worry," Tony breathed. "Your virtue is safe with me. And it's only the first date, after all." He had barely even dared to imagine more. "I just... I want you to be happy. I think— I think we'd be good for each other. So what do you say?"

Steve, of course, said nothing.

The dinosaur chirped inquisitively.

Tony breathed out, shaking. He was so tired. He had to shut his eyes. Just a minute. Just a minute, and it would all be okay. He just needed to rest.

He closed his eyes. He could feel himself slumping forward, pressing against Steve's shoulder, their joined hands tangled between them.

The world faded away around him, like falling through the clouds into endless fog.

* * *

Tony dreamed strange dreams.

In his dream Steve was holding him, and Steve's hands on his face were cool, as if Steve's fever had broken, as if Steve weren't dying.

"Goddammit, Tony," Steve was saying, and he sounded like he was crying, but Tony had no strength left to open his eyes. "How could you not tell me?"

_Tell you what_? Tony wanted to ask, but he couldn't speak either.

It was like floating at the bottom of a pool, looking at the world above; his thoughts were calm, hazy, and slow.

The dream faded out and faded in again, and then Steve was yelling.

"—over here! We're over here!"

There was a smell in his dream, a smell that wasn't blood, a sharp ozone smell, like how Carol always smelled. Carol? He was dreaming about Carol.

"Cap!" Carol called out, and Tony wanted to say _I'm here too_ , but he still couldn't summon up the energy. "Are you two all right? Oh my God. You're bleeding."

"I'm fine." Steve's voice was tense. "But Tony's hurt. Probably bleeding out. Not sure where he's hurt. He was trying to hide it. Maybe his back?"

"I have him," said a third voice, calm and serene. Wanda.

And then everything went pleasantly scarlet, a vivid color visible even with his eyes closed. The light diffused through his eyelids. It was a warm, healing glow, with the tingling Tony associated with one of Wanda's hexes. The pain left him in a sudden wave, a tide going out.

This was a good dream, Tony thought, contented. Steve was holding him and the Avengers were here and nothing hurt anymore. This was the best dream.

He smiled, and everything went away again.

* * *

Tony opened his eyes.

The mansion ceiling was above him. He was in the infirmary. His back was mildly uncomfortable, but that was all, and his head was spinning a little with the floaty feeling he associated with hardcore painkillers.

"There you are."

Steve's voice was soft and warm. Steve was—

Steve was alive. The relief that washed through Tony was better than any other feeling in the world. Better than drinking used to be.

Tony glanced to his left. Steve was sitting in a chair next to him. He was wearing street clothes, and his khakis were rolled up. His leg was swathed in bandages from calf to thigh, and he had a second chair pulled close; his leg was resting on it. There was a pair of crutches leaning against the wall.

"Are you all right?" Tony asked.

"Fine." Steve smiled a small smile, even as his brow furrowed. "The serum kicked in after all, just before the team found us. They were a little delayed. They had to go deal with AIM and Sauron, after all. Sauron was making AIM some raptors, as it turned out." He pursed his lips. "You should ask Carol if you want the whole story; the dinosaurs were apparently really something else. Anyway, it was Carol, Wanda, and Thor who got the message, which was good, because they landed the Quinjet at a safe distance and they could still fly us out without needing to deal with the electromagnetic whatever-it-was."

Tony coughed, mouth dry. "Ah. Sensible of them."

"I thought so," Steve agreed. "Unlike you." His gaze was dark, and Tony's stomach fell. "What were you even thinking? You thought you were going to bleed out and die and not tell me you were even _hurt_?" His voice rose in anger and pain. 

Oh. That.

"Were you— were you bleeding the whole time you were carrying me?" Steve just sounded betrayed. "Was that making it worse?"

Tony glanced away. "There was nothing either of us could have done," he pointed out. It had sounded a lot better in his head.

Steve sighed. "I'm not mad at you, Tony. I'm just— I—" He paused. There was a moment of silence. "I heard you, you know."

Heard him? Heard him what? What had Steve— oh God. No. He didn't. He hadn't.

He _knew_.

"I'm sorry," Tony said, terrified, exposed. He squeezed his eyes shut, but there was nowhere to run, there was nothing to do. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't mean to make you—"

Steve's hand settled over his. Steve's thumb stroked gently over the back of Tony's hand.

Tony dared to open his eyes again. Steve was smiling at him, a small, reassuring smile.

"Easy," Steve murmured. "It's okay. No need to panic."

This couldn't be real.

"Steve?" His voice cracked on the name.

"I care about you," Steve said, softly. "I care about you a hell of a lot. We've been friends and teammates for a decade, Tony. By anyone's standards, that's... an enduring relationship. I was trying to tell you that, earlier. I was a bit out of it, but the sentiment still stands." His mouth quirked. "And this life we have, there aren't any guarantees. I was waiting. I was afraid, I know. But I don't want to... look back and have waited too long. I'm here. You're here. And I think if it's something we both want—it's worth a try."

This was really real. Steve wanted him. Steve wanted him back.

"You really want this?"

"I really want this," Steve confirmed. "And, for the record, it's not pity, it's not an experiment, and I think that sounds like a lovely date." He looked down at himself and grimaced. "Maybe sometime when we can both stand up unaided."

"Oh my God," Tony said. "You want this. Me. You want to go on a date with me."

Steve leaned down and kissed his cheek, a brief dry brush of his lips that nonetheless promised more to come.

Tony could feel himself smiling, wide enough to hurt his face. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this happy.

"As long as you don't want to see that new Jurassic Park movie," Steve said, with a grin, "I'm up for anything you want. And Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"No need to worry about my virtue," Steve said, and his grin went knowing.

**Author's Note:**

> The dinosaur species in the cave is the [Aquilops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilops). Aren't they cute?
> 
> Also, this story has to take place at some point at the beginning of v3 after Steve has lost his original shield but also after Carol knows who Iron Man is. These times might not exactly overlap. I hope you don't mind.
> 
> The title has been borrowed, of course, from Arthur Conan Doyle's _The Lost World_.
> 
> The story has a post on Tumblr [here](http://sineala.tumblr.com/post/165602070169/fic-in-all-this-wide-world); phoenixmetaphor's art has a post [here](http://phoenixmetaphor.tumblr.com/post/165597317737/drawn-for-the-superhusbands-aluminum-anniversary). 
> 
> Also, if you were wondering what the rest of the Avengers found Sauron and AIM collaborating on, let's just say that it involved [AIM Raptor](http://phoenixmetaphor.tumblr.com/post/165597310422/a-silly-phone-doodle-that-happened-while).


End file.
